This is the second Story I started recently. To me it is starting better than the first. I did not wanna have too many htreads going on, but felt compelled to post it anyway to get some feedback on what you guys think so far. I swear I won't clog up Turtleback with story threads, I can only write one at a time! Keep in mind I have not spellchecked or edited this yet, so typos may be rampant...enjoy and hope to hear some feedback! Thank you. -Dave
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Chapter 1
November 13, 1975
6:32 P.M.
Dust filled the air as Mark Walker attempted to gather his belongings. Most of the documents and laminated photographs were unintelligible until the many months and years’ worth of dust and dirt were blown off of them. He hastily crammed what he could into several large suitcases, mindless of the protesting spines of centuries-old books letting go. The waning light that shone into the large picture windows of the library in this forgotten corner of Philadelphia gave the entire scene an eerie pall. He knew he had to hurry. He had been first discovered, then tracked, then approached. He knew the man would surely kill him, but death was the lesser of the two concerns Mark had. Sweat began to fall into his eyes, despite the chill that seeped into the room from the damp November air outside. He crammed even more documents into the suitcases, creasing them and bending the corners of the irreplaceable photographs into shapes that would have made this perfectionist and borderline obsessive-compulsive cringe only months earlier. Months before he had noticed the man that stood but did not speak. Months before he had seen the terrifying signs in his apartment. Months before he had dreamt of his imminent demise. And exactly two days since he had known that the time was at hand. He had to get as much of the information together as possible and pass it along. Someone would find it and hopefully not dismiss it as madness. Hopefully they would continue his research. Hopefully they would not be found as easily as he had been, and hopefully he would not meet his successor in Hell.
Mark hastily crammed one more handful of typed and bound documents into the second suitcase and pulled the zipper taught. He found out quickly enough that the enormous weight of paper, when grouped into a large mass, was nearly impossible to budge. Still he was running on pure adrenaline, and his college football days of nearly three decades ago still offered enough might to allow him to drag the suitcases out into the street, even if it was one at a time. As he exited the library for the last time he did not look back. Looking back meant that one acknowledged the fact that they may not return. Looking back meant that you peered into where you had been. Looking back could also prove to Mark that he may not be alone. He crammed the suitcases into the considerable trunk his five year old Monte Carlo offered and slammed the lid shut. Seconds later the large displacement V-8 roared to life and began its trek to the closest church Mark knew of. Surely there would be a person there that could appreciate the information.
Cold rain mixed with sleet began to pelt the windshield of the Mote Carlo as Mark drove through the nearly deserted streets of Philadelphia. Although night had fallen and the weather was terrible, there seemed to be an eerie emptiness to the streets, a fact that he found discomforting at the very least. He turned right onto a side street and ahead of him loomed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. At the base of it stood St. Augustine, a seemingly ancient Roman Catholic Church. He drove for it as if being led there by some unseen force and parked his car directly in front of the massive doors leading to the cathedral. He hurriedly opened the driver’s door and left it open, seeming not to care that the November rain was soaking his pristine interior. With the car running he popped the trunk and lugged the first suitcase to the doors, finding that they were, in fact, open. He ran inside and tried frantically to find someone to hand the documents over to, but could not. Mark slid the first suitcase underneath the rear right hand side pew and stopped at the doors before going back out into the darkness. He could feel the heavy weight of someone watching him and a chill went up his spine. The idling Chevy sat only twenty yards away, but the distance seemed like miles. He ran for his life and retrieved the remaining suitcase, placing it beside the first under the same pew. His footsteps echoed in the tomb-like silence of the cathedral as he approached the two banister rails that separated the pulpit from the congregation. For the first time in months he fell to his knees and prayed, forgetting the fact that he had been a life-long Baptist and was in a Catholic place of worship. Despite the difference they still prayed to the same Lord Mark thought as he knelt, talking to a God that he hoped would save him from the fate that countless others had met over the centuries. He was not the first, and would not be the last.
Mark slowly walked down the center of the aisle and felt ashamed that he neglected to shut the entry doors, as rain had dampened the floor in the entranceway. He took one last look toward the front of the grandiose hall and walked out into the night and to his awaiting car. Once inside with the doors shut he felt a bit more at ease. It was done. The information was safe now and with any luck would find itself in the hands of someone who could continue the research. He reached to place the transmission in drive and stopped short when he saw the flickering light of a cigarette being lit from the back seat. A man sat there in silence regarding Mark in the rearview mirror with eyes as dark as coal. The eyes were the same ones that had regarded him in silence from a distance on several occasions. They belonged to the face that had pursued him back in the summer. Mark’s heart leapt to his throat and his mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. It was if he didn’t need to, as the stranger spoke for him.
“Yeah, I know, don’t worry about it. No need to say anything, Mr. Walker. So it seems that you think you have ‘one-upped’ me. For the time being, yes, I guess you have. It takes an intelligent man to put such sensitive material on hallowed ground. As if you knew I could not enter that place and take it from you. Smart. Very smart. However, I have met much smarter men. So don’t pride yourself on your seemingly newfound conquest. However, I am going to offer you a reprise. All you have to do is go back in there and get those two satchels back and bring them to me. A simple request and one that will save you. I trust that a man of your intellect can appreciate the knowledge of what is to become of you if you don’t.”
Mark seemed to find a newfound bravado as he confronted the man that all mankind had been taught to fear.
“No. You know I won’t do it. Never. I know full well what happened to the others before me. And to compromise centuries of facts and proof of what and who you are is absurd. I have done my part. God help me, I will not give in. Not now, not ever.”
The man sat in silence for a length of time, smoking his cigarette down to the filter before speaking. The silence began to unnerve Mark as he anticipated his impending doom. As suddenly as he had appeared the man leaned forward, placing his crossed arms on the back of the passenger seat so that his face was mere inches from Mark’s own. His eyes widened a bit and a smile came across his face to reveal perfectly straight and gleaming white teeth. Teeth that seemed impossibly long and numerous to be natural. He spoke in a calm, even tone.
“Last chance, Bucko. Now move your ass and get those papers for me right now. And I mean right now.”
“Go to Hell! It ain’t happen..”
The man grabbed a handful of Mark’s hair and slammed his face into the steering wheel before he could finish his statement. Blood sprayed from Mark’s pulverized nose and saturated the inside of the windshield. He wheezed and gasped as the man pulled his head back against the headrest. The man put his face directly in front of Mark’s and Mark saw that the man’s eyes had gone totally black now, and the perfectly straight teeth ended in numerous needle-sharp points.
“Too late, Mr. Walker. Been there, done that.” With a shriek of rage the man tore Mark’s head from his shoulders and threw it like a football toward the closed doors of the church. It banged against the doors and left a crimson streak on one as it fell to the floor, open eyes seeing nothing. The man leapt from the still running car and ran into the night, shrieking in an inhuman howl of frustration and rage.
The remnants of wet footprints stained the floor nearly all the way up the center aisle. Father Anthony Gutierrez quizzically peered at them as they led to an expanding pool of water left at the foot of the entry doors. Someone had entered and then left again and not more than fifteen minutes ago, he presumed. He looked around and found that nothing was missing or vandalized, and was thankful. The Archbishop would have his rear for not being out to greet the visitor and attend to his or her needs, but if it had resulted in a harmful prank it surely would not have been the best of days for himself, that was for sure.
He followed the trail to the doors and reached out to open them again when he noticed something black in his peripheral vision. He turned his head and saw the edge of one of the suitcases protruding from the rear of the pew. Father Gutierrez walked back to the pew and knelt down, overcome by curiosity mixed with hope. Maybe someone had come and left not one, but two suitcases full of cash as a donation to the church. There were always those fables that things like that happened, and he had seen it on various television programs. Was it too far-fetched to think that it might actually occur in real life? He liked to think that maybe this was it in reality.
He knelt down and fumbled at the zipper on the first suitcase. Whatever was in it was packed solid, that was for sure. Upon finally getting the zipper open he looked inside to find not stacks of green, but stacks of folders, loose papers, and books so old that the binding had turned brown on most. He picked up a sheet of paper to see that it had various locations throughout the world and dates alongside. Cairo-June 08, 1935, Beijing-January 23, 1849, Stockholm-December 31, 1969. The list went on and on for at least the twenty more sheets that filled the manila folder where he had gotten this one. He sporadically looked a the dates and locations, noting that there were cities named that existed only in ancient Roman times, cities on every continent, and dates ranging from 1432 B.C. to August of this same year. He then found one of the photographs. It was the first of many to seer his eyes for the days and weeks to come. The first of countless others that would fill his sleepless nights with paranoia. It simply showed a man dressed in a completely black suit. He was hunkered down on one knee beside another man who lie on the ground on his back. The man on the ground seemed to be screaming, his eyes wide and glassy, mouth agape, veins protruding from his neck and forehead. His hands were clutched around the forearms of the man in the suit. The man in the suit had both hands buried up to the wrists in the man’s midsection. Amazingly enough the picture did not show any blood. Not one drop.
Father Gutierrez stared at the picture, seeming to gather every detail and nuance of the macabre scene that it depicted. Time went by and he did not notice. He systematically looked at several photographs. Some were just as horrific if not even more so. Some only showed the man in a crowd of people, standing on a street corner, smoking, and sometimes waiting in line at various subway stations. Some were ordinary photos of a man in everyday life, some were much more ominous. One chilling picture showed the same man, a large white grin on his face, waving at children departing a school bus somewhere in the desert southwest of the United States. Based on the style of the bus Father Gutierrez put the date in the late 1940’s. He spent perhaps two hours gazing through the uppermost contents of the first suitcase when he heard a boisterous “hello!” from outside the front doors of the church. Cautiously he walked to the doors and placed his hand on the knob. The metal felt colder than it should have been, despite the November chill in the air outside. He opened one of the doors and saw a man in a black suit standing at the base of the steps, grinning back at him. The face and the hair were the same as the man depicted in the various photographs throughout the last few decades. And as it was in the pictures, the man showed no signs of aging. An instant chill went down Anthony’s spine and he began to close the door when the man ascended the steps in one quick, fluid motion and stopped just outside the door.
“Father! I was wondering if you could help me. My brother left me a message to pick up some luggage here that he left for me. Think there is a chance that you could gather those for me and just put them outside the door here? Man, I would greatly appreciate it!” The smile never wavered and the coal black eyes never blinked.
“I do not know who you are just yet, sir, but something is clearly not right here. I ask you in the name of the Lord to leave this place.”
“The Lord, you say?” The man boomed echoing laughter at the statement. “I just do not think that is an option. Now, Father Gutierrez, if you would be so kind as to just put those satchels outside this door we do not have to go back and forth any longer and waste anymore of your precious time, now do we?” The smile faltered a little bit and anger began to well in the stranger’s eyes.
“As I said, in the name of our Heavenly Father, leave this place and let me be.”
The man backed up a single step and stooped to pick up something to his left. Father Gutierrez did not see what the item was until the stranger threw it into the open door, barely missing him. A severed human head rolled lazily down past the Father’s feet and came to rest against the open suitcase.
“There! I see the suitcase, now if you do not want to end up like Sir Walker here I suggest you give me the damned satchels!” The man’s eyes went totally black now and his coat waved in an unfelt wind around his legs. Father Gutierrez backed away slightly, knowing now exactly who this “man” was, and why the two suitcases had been left for him to find. He dipped both hands into the bowl of holy water and threw it into the face of the stranger.
The stranger screamed and backed up several feet, covering his face. The muffled screams turned to laughter as the stranger lowered his hands and held them out as if in inspection.
“Well then. First of all, Father, I am not Vlad Tepes. And you, by no means are Van Helsing. You really didn’t think that that would help you in this instance, now did you?” He erupted into another freshet of hearty laughter, but the eyes still radiated the man’s fury. “Vlad was just an ordinary man, you see? A man that made a deal once a long time ago. But his downfalls were pride, power, and fame. He thought that he actually became more powerful than even me! Believe me, I spend a lot of time now reminding him of his place. You can say that he is well schooled, and will continue to be, on just who the master is. So will you if you do not place those two items outside this door right now!”
Father Gutierrez backed away and slammed the door shut in the stranger’s face. He knew that the demon could not enter the doors of the church and as long as he was inside he would be safe. He retrieved a large garbage bag from the supply room and gingerly placed the head into it. He then took the suitcases down into the basement and hid them behinds several layers of canvas until he could go through the contents of each.
Not more than ten minutes after he placed the call the entire front section of the parking lot was full of police cars. And one single idling Monte Carlo with a headless occupant. There were two straight days of questioning and pictures taken. An officer by the name of Walter Higgins took possession of the trash bag with Mark’s head in it. Father Anthony neglected to mention the two suitcases. After all, how could he testify that the Devil himself had come down to Philadelphia, beheaded an insurance salesman in the parking lot, and accosted a man of the cloth for the contents of two suitcases? In the coming weeks it was chocked up to an unsolved case of random violence and placed on the back burner where later it would become a cold case. Sgt. Higgins would pay Father Anthony several visits in the coming weeks, months, and years. It would not be until 1984 that Father Anthony would finally pass on the contents of the suitcases. In them the next recipient would find approximately another nine year’s worth of documents and pictures. It was days later that sleep finally came for Father Anthony, and it was broken by nightmares of savage onslaughts delivered by the man in the black suit.